Claims: Commons speaker John Bercow, pictured with wife Sally, said the scandal was a result of Westminster becoming less 'meaningful'

Politicians abused the expenses system as a ‘displacement activity’ because they were bored by an increasingly irrelevant Parliament, John Bercow has claimed.

The Commons Speaker prompted criticism when he blamed the expenses scandal on Westminster becoming less ‘meaningful’ rather than on collective ‘malice or corruption’.

The scandal has resulted in four MPs and two members of the Lords being jailed. In a speech in London, Mr Bercow played down the greed of politicians, suggesting they were simply being ‘imaginative’.

‘The blunt truth is that the expenses debacle was a particularly embarrassing layer of icing on an especially unappetising cake,’ he told political charity the Hansard Society.

‘The reality in 2009 is that the House of Commons as a meaningful political institution … had been in decline for some decades.’

He added: ‘The House appeared to be little more than a cross between a rubber stamp and a talking shop which had taken to collective activity such as the imaginative interpretation of what might be a legitimate expense claim – as much as an odd form of displacement activity as out of any shared sense of malice or corruption.’

But last night Sir Alistair Graham, former chairman of the committee on standards in public life, said Mr Bercow had ‘got it totally wrong’.

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‘The expenses scandal looked to me like a deliberate attempt by MPs to overcome their grievances over their salaries by boosting their expenses,’ he said.

Anti-sleaze: Sir Alistair Graham, the former chairman of the committee on standards in public life, said Mr Bercow had 'got it totally wrong'

‘They had been given quite improper nods and winks by former prime ministers who hinted that while it might not be politically possible to increase their pay, it was legitimate to maximise how much they claimed in expenses.

‘This created a very disturbing culture which is nothing to do with boredom but a way to bump up their pay.’ Senior Conservative MP Rob Wilson, who has described Mr Bercow as ‘divisive and self-important’, said his comments showed he was out of touch.

Changes: Mr Bercow also suggested reforms to give backbenchers more power

Mr Wilson, an aide for Chancellor George
Osborne, added: ‘The expenses scandal had nothing to do with
displacement activity and more to do with the fact that Parliament was
not open and transparent enough to the public.’

Mr Bercow suggested his
moves to give backbenchers more powers had resulted in a ‘Westminster
Spring’ – referring to the pro-democracy revolution in the Middle East.

He
credited his own reforms for giving life to the ‘virtual corpse’ of
Parliament, suggesting more family-friendly hours and allowing MPs to
quiz ministers at short notice were the most important changes.

‘Far from being in the final twitches of our mortal life, the virtual corpse has staged an unexpected recovery,’ he said. ‘It strikes me that three factors best explain the resuscitation of the House of Commons over these past three years.

‘They are procedural change, fresh blood and the novelty of coalition government. The first of these is probably, on balance, the most important.’

Mr Bercow also called for Britain to use online voting in elections and announced the creation of a Speaker’s commission on ‘digital democracy’ to help politicians and technology firms work together.

He said the project was ‘unpredictable, potentially anarchic’ but denied he was ‘stretching the nature of [his] office’ by calling for political reforms.

BERCOW CLAIMED £100,000 IN THREE YEARS

Commons Speaker John Bercow racked up nearly £100,000 in expenses in three years – despite a grace-and-favour residence by the Thames.

He charged £16,000 for chauffeur-driven official car journeys and ran up £63,000 on flights, including visits to almost 20 countries to lecture them on democracy.

One of the car journeys was to the offices of the MPs’ expenses watchdog – only one mile from Parliament. He claimed £84.31 for the round trip.

His biggest expense was £11,252.81 for a return business class flight for himself and two staff to Canada, for the 2010 G8 Speakers’ conference in Ottawa.

The huge sums are on top of £9,200 claimed by Mr Bercow in the past three years in his role as MP for Buckingham.

He visited India, the US and South Africa at the invitation of their parliaments but British taxpayers picked up the bill.